Building the Church

I’ve pitched in on some of the demolition work we’re doing for ‘Phase 2’. My ‘skill set’ lends itself better to demolition than to construction. I took bricks off the wall, one by one, hammering, chipping, prying. Sometimes the mortar was weak and they came off cleanly. Sometimes it was strong enough to tear part of the brick off with it. As I was working and sweating I couldn’t help but reflect on those who had mortared the bricks together. The building was done in the early 50s and some of the people who did the work are still faithfully serving the Lord here. Their sweat mixed with the mortar as they were laying it. Now my sweat was soaking in as it was being taken off. The story I’ve heard is that is that the volunteer labor was carefully tracked and that if you didn’t contribute your share of hours, your tithe was proportionally increased! They were a little stricter in those days.

But the mixture of sweat got me thinking. Labor putting it up, labor taking it off. More labor to come as it’s put back together. Time passing and what’s it all for? The labor goes into the building but it’s not for the building. We don’t sweat and give in order to have a building. It’s for people. The building is just a means, a tool through which God can impact people. Bricks and mortar, bathrooms and a kitchen … they’re all important parts but just parts of a tool, a means to an end. The end is the work of God in the lives of people. It’s easy to get confused. A building is tangible and material. A certain amount of effort yields a certain amount of progress. People aren’t like that. A building looks important. People often don’t. A building is consistent and dependable. People aren’t.

I remember an incident some years ago. We had just put a new rug in a room and the youth had carelessly (imagine that) spilled something and marred it somehow. We were talking about costs and consequences. In the midst of the conversation I was struck with an absurd thought. I pictured myself at the judgment seat of Christ (this is where believers will give an account of their lives to the Lord and be rewarded to a greater or lesser extent) with the rug. I imagined myself saying “Lord, here’s your rug. I took good care of it. See how nice it is. I made sure people didn’t mess it up.” The look I imagined in His eyes (if you’ve walked with Him for a while you know those eyes) was a mixture of pity and anger. “Chris,” He seemed to say, “I don’t care about the rug. I care about the people. The messy, thoughtless, inconvenient people. I already have all the rugs I want.”

So we labor on the building but we labor for the Lord. Not because He needs the building but because He desires us to use it as a means to impact the only thing He really wants – people. Once there was a temple, a literal physical building where God dwelt and met with His people. If you wanted to encounter God, you had to go to the temple. These days it’s different. God doesn’t dwell in a building. He dwells in us, we are the temple (2 Cor. 6:16; 1 Peter 2:4) and it’s as we interact with people that they encounter God.